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judgecorp writes "The first Raspberry Pi Awards have picked the best projects built by schoolchildren using the Raspberry Pi. The winners included a team of 8 to 11 year olds, who built a door-answering machine for elderly or disabled people, and a team of 12 to 16 year olds, who made an automated pill dispenser for forgetful patients. Other categories included adults, who built a wireless home power consumption system."

Seriously, these are some good ideas. The young always seem to be open thinkers. Helping save energy, help the old, and the disabled. That's what tech should be for first and foremost. Possibly helping the starving as well.

But is it about being environmentally friendly, or saving a few bucks on the power bill? Kids are all for saving the world and helping others, full of optimism! br?But as they grow older, perhaps the ultimate goes is that it's all about the money. Perhaps I'm just cynical?

As for the doorbell system, what are the probabilities that the device to send a text message will be closer than the door itself? Forget doorbells all together. If someone wants to see me let them bring a cell phone. The cell phone would have to be able to remotely get the number to dial so that your house did not give your cell phone number to everyone. Than one would be able to answer even if they were not home. This would mean than any door to door salesperson would be able to contact you even if

I've taught kids electronics and programming using the pi and they are mostly thick as two short planks. Yes, the kids might have assembled these projects - but I find it very unlikely they actually designed them, or did more than a very little programming.

The average kid might lack the smarts or the interest to do these projects, but there are plenty of individuals in those age groups who are able to come up with stuff like this, design it, then build and program it. It won't following engineering standards, be bug free, and might not even work very well in general, but that's not the point of this competition.

but there are plenty of individuals in those age groups who are able to come up with stuff like this, design it, then build and program it.

I am upset as anybody that not all kids can do this. No kid left behind, remember? So these kids must wait for all the others to either catch up or at least stopping offending the children by showing they can do something others can't.Should happen with everything (except sports where there are only winners and loosers and the loosers are worth nothing and should know i

It is more like a Pez dispenser which will only dispense candy N times a day, where N is programmable through a website, and will alert the user with an alarm and flashing light when the dispenser is ready to dispense another sweet. And even better, will alert a family member via email if the sweet has not been removed from the machine within a reasonable time frame.

Kudo to these kids for learning how to build something useful out of (technologically advanced) parts!

I think the kids got a taste of what product development is like, as much as you can get in a few weeks in a pre-college school scenario anyway. But real product development is hard, and the reasons why it is hard are also hard to teach. You have to be able to get out and talk to people who would be future users of your product, and distill down to something that would actually be of service to them, an

And then they were suspended from school for bringing a pill dispenser, which could contain drugs, onto school property.

No drugs were found in the dispenser, but school officials are defending their decision, along with the decision to suspend their classmate when, upon hearing the news, made a gun with his fingers and said "they got em good".